Weekend beer notes

No, I didn’t go to The Little Woody, because we were spending our Labor Day weekend in Portland instead. But there’s still some beer stuff to talk about.

Lunch at Hopworks Urban Brewery, enjoying a taster tray of all ten of their current offerings plus a delicious burger. It was my first time to HUB, I’ll have a full review soon.

Finally visited Belmont Station at their new(ish) location at 45th and Stark. Bought a few specialty beers, and enjoyed a beer from the bar (from one of their 17 taps—I knew they had beer on tap, but I didn’t realize they had that much). Plus, this past weekend was their “Imperial IPA Festival” which means all but four of those taps were hosting some big hop bombs. What I chose while there was Avery Maharaja (quite good on tap).

My friend Justin and his family had recently moved into a new place (still in southeast Portland), and one of the places they’ve discovered close by is Edelweiss, a full-on German deli and market that also happens to have an incredible selection of German beers. A Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier goes pretty well with German smoked sausage, incidentally.

Interestingly, directly across the street from Edelweiss, is the brand-new Bushwhacker Cider: a cider pub, basically, who was having their soft opening that very day—something we didn’t know until after we wandered in to check it out. Nice little spot, basically converting an industrial space into a pub. They had four ciders on tap and a fifth tap with Fort George Brewery‘s Calvatica Stout. We split a pint of cider (and a taster of the stout), and found out that they are seeking their winery license (yes, winery) so that they can make their own cider to serve on-premise. Very cool, someplace I’d look forward to revisiting. (The New School has a more in-depth writeup.)